Bracket Madness

By: Jeff Archer

Posted: Wed 12:55 AM, Mar 18, 2009

By: Jeff Archer

While fans sit back and enjoy the madness that is March, it is enough to drive me crazy.

Any basketball fan will tell you that the three weeks at the end of March are the most wonderful time of the year (no offense to Christmas). You of course have the NCAA Tournament with a seemingly endless rush of games. Add in the NIT (and the newly added CBI for hardcore basketball fans) and there is enough to keep you entertained until the end of time. Just ask any "Tournament Widow". A "Tournament Widow" is the wife or girlfriend of a man who so obsesses over the games that he tends to forget that she exists. And essentially, she does fail to exist for those three weeks. Or until your team is eliminated at least. Sorry ladies, but it's true.

While it is enjoyable, for those who work in the business it can also be a big pain in the neck. The corkboard over my desk resembles the wall from the movie "A Beautiful Mind" when Russell Crowe has papers pinned up all over the place in a manner that makes sense only to him.

I have brackets for the NCAA, NIT, Boys' Sweet 16, NAIA Mens' and NAIA Womens' Tournament all in front of me. Each is highlighted with teams of interest and their playing times. I also have sheets of paper with what set of highlights and post game comments are coming for each show on each day from both the Boys' Sweet 16 (Derek Forrest covering) and the Mens' NAIA Tournament in Kansas City (Brian Milam covering).

And to organize everything into one page, I have a sheet of paper that list all games of interesting and their tip-off times from all 5 tournaments put together.

So basically I have 8 sheets of paper telling me when each game is and at what time and what our coverage is going to be down to the second. I won't even go into the fact that I have to speculate as to what teams are going to advance how far in each tournament so I can anticipate possible coverage.

All in all, it's a bit crazy... or should I say "mad". Bad pun intended. But in the end, I enjoy it. Even if it may cause me to age prematurely. We all make sacrifices, right?

Posted: 11:26 AM
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